Welcome to my bloggy home. Here, I strive to make you laugh like never before, cry warmhearted tears, get silly, and be naughty. Together, we'll uncover morsels of sweetness in the light and dark. You'll leave craving chocolate. That's a given. I'm a bad influence. Oy vey, am I a bad influence! {But I do recommend fair trade and organic varieties.} Please enjoy the samples, and may you fast become addicted. I hope you'll return again and again. Then once more.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Warning: This annual Halloween-time (re)post
is disturbing, but the information is too
important to ignore. Please be mindful of these facts when purchasing your Halloween candy and/or when feeding a cocoa craving.

The data to follow is based on my research in the fall of 2010. Hershey’s hasn’t budged since then, despite routine empty promises.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two of my great loves – kids and chocolate – have
been at a morbid impasse for years or, perhaps, centuries. While I
previously enjoyed a blissful dose of cheap (i.e., Hershey’s) chocolate,
I was ignorant of the true cost of this pleasantry.

Every year thousands of children are kidnapped, trafficked, and sold to
cocoa plantations. The average price per child: $1.20-1.90. The rate of
pay: $.01 for chocolate that is sold for $1 in the United States.
Sometimes they aren’t paid at all. Yet they are forced to endure 12-18 hour
workdays, handle machetes, climb high trees –
while exposed to hazardous chemicals in a treacherous climate. Those who rebel or perform “poorly” are beaten. Those attempting to
escape are killed. A vast majority of these known abuses -over
15,000 annually- occur in West Africa’s Ivory Coast.

While Hershey’s claims moral outrage, it continues business with the
Ivory Coast. Meanwhile other chocolate companies assure exploitation-free products. Certainly the world’s largest chocolate corporation, boasting over $5 billion in revenue annually, can afford to take a stance.

Americans
pay $15 billion for chocolate each year, with nearly 43% of this for
Hershey’s candies. This monstrous entity acquired Sharffen-Berger in
2005 and Dagoba in 2006. It continues to produce many non-chocolate
products, such as Twizzlers, along with numerous non-food items.

Fortunately there are plenty of alternatives. The most safe option carries a Fair Trade Label.
This guarantees a minimum price for
farmers, prohibits abusive labor, and promotes environmental
sustainability. We pay a bit more for fair trade chocolate, but dollars go directly
to community resources such as schools and hospitals.
Fair trade cocoa originates in Belize, Bolivia, Cameroon, Costa Rica,
the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ghana, Nicaragua, and Peru. To find out
a chocolate bar’s source, simply look at the back label.

A second option is organic
chocolate (e.g., Newman’s Organics). Organic farms have their own systems of independent monitoring that
checks labor practices.

There’s much guesstimating in this area. Here's my best effort to
delineate some of the “good” vs the “bad.” On the good team, I included
companies that have begun socially conscious efforts.

Bad Chocolate:
Hershey’s and any chocolate from West Africa's Ivory Coast,
Mars/M&M's, Dove, Dagoba (taken over by Hershey's, though they
do have at least one fair trade chocolate bar), Scharffen Berger (also
taken over by Hershey's).

Finally, many are fighting the good fight, including my sources of this information:

Do
you mean to say,“Thank you, but we’re not interested”? If so, say it. If not,
do you mean to admit that you are
completely inept at determining the relevance of my writing in relation to
Stewpid Magazine dot com? If so, I question your relevance as a Copy Editor.

Finally,
who is Maryanne? Note that I am Robyn, as per the name in my email address, the
one to which you sent this dubious message, the same address in the
links and at the closing of my email below your dubious message. Hint: look below your dubious message.

Good
day, Ginger.

Sincerely,

Robyn
Alana Engel

WRITING
GIGS ON CRAIGSLIST:

Looking
for a winter for a
short filmGood luck finding a winter in California.

I'm looking for some one to brang my short film idea
to life would like to do a mad max tipe of film looking some one to get a basic stay or scriped dawn on paper any
help would be grate
thanks

Sounds like an idea worth grating. See the poster above. Do you work during the
winter?